Anime Addventure : Imposed evolution
by tutcat
Summary: Stories that are from that place that have been saved. Shout out to Gelionlegends for this one (all stories up for adoption) fixed placement


Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma 1/2 or any other crossover characters. They are owned by there respective owners. Not out to make any money or fame on others work.

This is a collection of fic s I was able to save of a web archive that has shut down recently. Some had been edited so my text reader would work better. So original authors and extra stuff was removed from the fic .

On the ones that have not been edited I will be editing them so the original authors will get credited for their parts. Also if you have the parts that I m missing let me know in a PM will edit them in. Same with other fic s if you have them will post for others to be able to read.

Imposed evolution

A Bright New Day [Episode 6261]  
by Kender The pig-tailed center of chaos blinked several times and sighed. Stupid crazy dreams. They were alway there when you least wanted them. And you never knew what direction that they could take.

Dreams like the one that had just ended had to be the fault of Akane's cooking. Eating it before going to sleep made for some crazy dreams. Although, eating it meant that you were likely to go be unconscious whether you wanted to or not.

Bed Partnering In Confusion [Episode 6270]  
by Kender For most folks, it was a rather unusual occurrence to have someone in the bed with them when they woke up when they did not remember it. Panicking was a normal course of action as was befuddlement. One simply did not wake up to someone else's face when they didn't remember getting into bed with them and take it easily.

Ranma was no exception. "What the hell..?!"

Such a thorny situation [Episode 10623]  
by Thrythlind Ranma took a moment to try and identify the girl. She looked familiar, and really he should have been able to recognize her, but there were some slight differences that threw him off for a little bit.

The hard lines of arrogance and scheming were softened and vanished from her sleeping face, which was framed by long, unbound black hair that seemed to just pool about her. She slept peacefully, sidled up close to his body and and curling into his warmth.

She was so lovely and serene seeming that Ranma felt nervous about waking her up.

"Where..." the sleeping girl muttered and suddenly her voice clued Ranma into her identity.

Imposed Evolution: Mistaken Identification (DARK) [Episode 10741]  
by Iridium Heart

"K-Kodachi?" Ranma asked, hoping not to wake her up. He winced as an abrupt montage of memories that didn't feel like his own flashed through his head. Memories of another raven-haired girl. "S-Selene?"

"Motoko," the raven-haired beauty snuggled up to him muttered sleepily. "Who...? Michael?"

"Ranma," Ranma corrected without thinking, still confused about the foreign memories in his head.

The girl stiffened against him and her eyes flew open. For a moment their eyes met. Ranma noticed hers were a rich sienna color flecked with gold before she was suddenly standing on the other side of the room. Her eyes were now an ice blue color and her lips were curled back in a feral snarl to reveal an impressive set of fangs. In spite of the hostility of her stance, Ranma idly noted that her fangs and eye color did nothing to detract from her naked beauty as she watched him warily.

The girl blinked, her eyes returning to their natural sienna and her fangs retracting until they were just slightly longer and sharper than a normal person's canines. She clutched the sides of her head as her knees buckled beneath her.

"Are you okay?" Ranma asked, slipping off the cold, metal table they had been laying on.

He reached down and absently pulled the IV needle out of his arm and dropped it to dangle from the empty IV bag hanging from a stand by the table. The girl had also had one which had been ripped out of her arm when she leapt across the room.

"What's happened to me?" the girl moaned. "Where am I?"

Ranma looked around the room. The walls and floor were bare stone and there were no furnishings beyond the metal table. There was one heavy metal door that appeared to be quite sturdy. Overall, the room resembled a dungeon but gave no other indication as to where they were.

"I don't know," Ranma answered. "The last thing I remember was trying to save Akane from the latest group of kidnappers..."

Ranma trailed off as horrific memories began to wash over him. These kidnappers were unlike any he had faced before. They were fast, almost faster than him, and incredibly tough. It seemed no matter how hard he hit them they would just get back up and attack again. They also used guns. Ranma remembered the horror as one by one his friends had fallen under a hail of bullets until only he remained. He remembered the pain both physical and emotional as he was suddenly faced by a sneering Akane who looked at him with eyes filled with disdain before she shot him.

He was haunted by her last words to him. "You're too late, Ranma," she had laughed, her brown eyes turning ice blue and her canines extending wickedly. "I've become more powerful than even you could imagine!"

Ranma froze in his tracks where he was approaching the girl to comfort her.

"You're one of them!" Ranma snarled, his body tensing as anger coursed through him.

Motoko looked up and gasped as she heard the boy's angry accusation. His storm-cloud gray eyes had turned ice blue and his lips were curled back to reveal a vicious set of fangs. She scrambled backward, casting about for anything to use as a weapon as she pressed herself into the corner of the room.

Memories of the last time she had seen features like that came to the forefront of her mind. She had received a message from her sister asking her to investigate reports of evil spirits inhabiting an old mansion near the Hinata Springs. Things had seemed quiet when she arrived at the location. She slipped into the deteriorated building and began searching for signs of spiritual activity.

It wasn't until she reached the basement that she encountered the first creature. At first it had seemed a normal human, but then she saw the ice blue eyes and the fangs as it snarled at her. She had killed it readily as it charged her as she did with the next two. Unfortunately, she seemed to have stumbled on a whole colony of the creatures and they were armed to the teeth.

Motoko was soon dodging bullets frantically as she strove to dispatch the monsters, but there were too many and they had automatic weapons. She remembered the searing pain as the first bullet tore into her thigh followed by two more in her gut. One of them must have hit her spine because her legs instantly collapsed under her.

As she lay on the ground whimpering with pain, one of the beasts approached her, kicking the sword from her hand and picking her up by the hair to look cruelly into her eyes.

"Now what shall we do with you?" he asked with a nasty smirk. "You're quite impressive to have killed so many of us all on your own." He sniffed her theatrically. "You smell like a tasty little morsel. Perhaps I shall make a meal of you..."

Then everything went black as Motoko had passed out from pain and blood loss.

Motoko's hand unconsciously went to her belly, feeling for a wound that wasn't there. She looked down in surprise when her hand only encountered unblemished skin.

"What's happening?" Motoko whimpered before looking up at the creature glaring at her from several feet away. "What did you monsters do to me?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing.

"Who are you callin' a monster?" the creature snapped. "You're the one with the freaky, color-changing eyes and the fangs! Just like the freaks that killed all my friends and took Akane!"

"You better look in a mirror," Motoko snorted. "I'm not the one with the fangs and weird eyes!"

The creature blinked in surprise, his eyes returning to their previous storm-cloud gray and his fangs retracting. Motoko watched as he ran his tongue over his teeth, probing the shortened fangs.

"Oh shit..." he commented. "I've been turned into one of you freaks."

"What do you mean 'one of you freaks'?" Motoko demanded. "I'm not a monster."

"When you jumped off the table, your eyes turned blue and you grew a nasty set of fangs," the creature pointed out. "That ain't normal."

It was Motoko's turn to blink in confusion. She mimicked his actions of a moment ago and discovered her own shortened, but still longer and sharper than normal canines.

Imposed Evolution: Checking Out [Episode 213227]  
by Iridium Heart

"It can't be!" the girl gasped. "I can't have been turned into one of those demons!"

Ranma watched as the girl shook her head violently from side to side in denial. He quickly realized she was no more one of 'them' than he was. They both appeared to be in the same boat, turned into whatever those things were without their knowledge or consent. Shrugging, he turned to the door. It was time to leave.

Ranma walked up to the door and lashed out with a kick. His foot impacted the heavy steel door with a resounding clang. The door held, but a deep dent appeared where he kicked it and it warped in its frame.

"What are you doing?" the girl asked.

"I thought it was time for us to get out of here and find some clothes," Ranma answered. "Then we can see about making the things that did this to us pay."

Without waiting for an answer, he lashed out with another kick. This time the door gave way, tearing from its hinges and loudly slamming against the wall on the other side of the corridor before slowly falling backward to crash to the ground.

Ranma stepped confidently into the corridor and looked both ways. He appeared to be in a dark hallway lined with similar metal doors. There was a dead end on one end and a doorway on the other with light streaming through the edges. He headed toward that door.

The closer he got to the door the stronger the scent of blood became. It was strangely alluring to him, as if it were reaching through his nose and grabbing some primal part of his brain, awakening a hunger like he had never experienced before. By the time he reached the door, he hadn't even realized that his eyes had turned ice blue and his fangs had extended.

"What is that smell?" a voice moaned from beside him, the tone reflecting the same hunger he felt.

Ranma looked over to see the girl standing there staring at the door, her eyes also ice blue and her fangs cutely poking out over her bottom lip.

"Blood," Ranma answered.

The girl grimaced in disgust.

"How can that be...? It smells so..." she trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought. "What did they do to us?"

Ranma didn't answer. Instead he lashed out another kick, this time tearing the door off its hinges on the first try, sending it careening across the room on the other side, knocking over a table and smashing the glassware that was sitting on it.

"It might have been unlocked you know," the girl remarked. "Now we're going to have to avoid stepping on the glass."

"Uh...heh..." Ranma scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

However, it soon became apparent that the glass would have been a problem regardless of Ranma's door opening technique. The room appeared to be some sort of lab by the microscopes, test tubes, and assorted other unidentifiable, expensive-looking equipment. It also appeared to be ransacked.

As the pair carefully picked their way through the debris of smashed glass and equipment they spotted the first body. She was a red-haired gaijin woman dressed in a short leather skirt, a black lace top, and black fishnet stockings with knee-high, clunky boots. If the lab coat she wore over her Goth garb was any indication, she was probably the one that ran the lab. Now she lay where she had been thrown against the wall in a pool of her own blood with her throat torn out.

Ranma ignored the body and the hungry feeling the sight of the blood gave him, making his way to the door. The corridor outside the lab held even more bodies. The air was heavy with the sent of blood and burnt gun powder. There was also a cloying scent of something else, like the scent of an unwashed dog. It didn't take the pair long before they spotted the source.

"T-that's a werewolf," the girl gasped.

"A what?" Ranma asked.

"A werewolf," she repeated. "You know, a man that gets bitten by a wolf and then changes into half man, half wolf during the full moon? It's a western legend."

Ranma was familiar with most of the Japanese mythological creatures, but this was a new one on him. Still, with all the weird stuff he'd seen, it wasn't a stretch to accept this one.

"Looks like these things beat us to the punch on getting some payback," Ranma remarked in an almost disappointed tone.

"Yes, well, I'm more concerned about getting some clothing and figuring out what happened to us before I worry about punishing the freaks responsible for it," the girl commented. Suddenly, she gasped. "If these are werewolves...I think we've been turned into vampires!"

Now that was one western myth that Ranma was vaguely familiar with. Nabiki loved vampire movies, which in Ranma's opinion was fitting since they could both suck the life out of a man.

"That makes sense, I guess," Ranma nodded. "That would explain the fangs and why all this blood looks so...interesting."

The girl nodded silently.

"Let's just see if we can find something to wear," she said. "Hopefully something clean. I would rather not have to strip the clothes off of the bodies."

"No arguments here," Ranma said with a grimace.

The pair moved on, searching the rooms they came to. Whoever was responsible for this place had quite a bit of cash. The place was packed with high tech electronics and sported an impressive armory. There was enough guns and ammo to outfit an army. Unfortunately, it hadn't seemed to do them any good. Ranma had counted at least fifty bodies so far, mostly vampires, but, also several of the wolf-man things. Lycans, his foreign memories told him.

They soon found the residential wing and split up to look for clothing that fit. While Ranma searched the closets and dressers, his mind traveled back to the armory. Oddly, he found he knew what each of the weapons were and how to use them. Before he had only been vaguely familiar with guns and only from the standpoint of how to deal with them being used against him. However, the flashes of memory he was getting were becoming increasingly clear, providing him with information. They were also compelling him to revisit the armory because he wouldn't feel fully dressed unless he was armed to the teeth.

Ranma quickly put together some clothing that fit. It might be a problem for his female form, but they fit his male form well. He was even able to find a pair of boots that fit. He dressed quickly and headed back to the armory.

Imposed Evolution: Gearing Up [Episode 213286]  
by Iridium Heart

Motoko wasn't a happy camper. It was bad enough that she had been turned into some sort of predator with the thirst for human blood, but now she was forced to wear someone else's panties. The very thought was disgusting. On the other hand, she had managed to catch at least one break: she had found a brand new pair that still had the tags on them. Unfortunately, it was an ecchi leather thong with shiny silver rings sewn to the front panel. Hygiene won out over stylistic objections though and she had to admit, the thong did look good on her.

Whoever these monsters were, they did have a thing for leather. The only clothing she found that wasn't an elaborate evening dress seemed to be made of leather or latex. Eventually, she settled on a pair of black leather, boot-cut pants that were skin tight in her waist, hips, and thighs before loosening up at her knees. She also found a pair of clunky but practical boots for her feet. On top she wore a black leather bustier that zipped up the front and displayed far more cleavage then she was normally comfortable with. The leather, waist-length jacket helped a little though. She tied her hair back into a high ponytail with a wide strip of black lace and headed for the armory. She saw a sword in there she could replace the one she'd lost with.

Motoko entered the armory and paused when she saw the boy was already there standing in front of a table where he had laid out an assortment of weapons. Motoko was surprised she could identify each of them. He had: two stainless steel Desert Eagle .50AE's, two Sig Sauer P229 .40 S&Ws, two combat knives, twelve throwing knives, a Mossberg 590 shotgun with a tactical stock and an ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight), an FN-FAL also with an ACOG, several spare magazines for each weapon, and several boxes of extra ammo.

"What are you going to do with all those?" Motoko asked, taking note that the boy had discovered the male monsters had similar taste in clothing as the females if the black leather pants and boots were any indication. He was also wearing a black leather vest over a tight black t-shirt with a long black coat over everything. She wanted to smack herself when she caught herself thinking he looked totally delicious.

"Heh, got no idea," he chuckled, scratching his head. "For some reason I felt like I just wouldn't be dressed unless I was armed. So I came down here to get a weapon and before I knew it all this was piled on the table." He looked over at her and froze, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head. "Wow...you look...wow..."

Motoko blushed and looked at the floor demurely.

"It was all I could find that was halfway practical," she explained.

"You make it look good," the boy observed. "Better than good."

"You...um...pull off the bad boy look pretty good yourself," Motoko replied, embarrassed. "So how were you planning on carrying all that without causing a public panic and getting yourself thrown in jail?"

"I haven't decided what I'm taking yet," the boy explained. "I could take it all and nobody would see anything. I know a technique for hidden weapons I learned by watching a rival of mine. I'm Ranma Saotome, by the way."

"I'm Motoko Aoyama of the Shinmei Ryu," Motoko introduced.

"Pleased to meetcha," Ranma replied.

"So you're a martial artist or something?" Motoko asked.

"Yeah, I am...was...the heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts," Ranma explained. "Dunno if I still am or not. I ain't even human anymore. I damn sure ain't marryin' that uncute tomboy now that she shot me. I don't even want to think about going back to the Tendo's. Pop and Mr. Tendo will kick me out until I go and get Akane back for them and then they'll see it as some kind of weird destiny that both of us have been turned into Vampires and force us to get married. Nabiki will either want me to turn her into a Vampire or sell me to some government lab or something."

"Maybe you can...uh...come with me to see my sister once we figure out where we are," Motoko said haltingly.

Was she really thinking about bringing a boy home to meet her sister? Tsuruko had been bad enough trying to get her married to Keitaro. Motoko didn't even want to contemplate how she would react to this mess. She didn't have much choice though. Her sister needed to know what was going on here before anyone else ended up killed or turned.

"Why would we go see your sister?" Ranma asked.

"She's the head of our branch of the Shinmei Ryu," Motoko explained. "She's the one that sent me to investigate these creatures in the first place. although we thought they were just evil spirits at the time so I wasn't prepared for what I stumbled into."

Motoko blushed again, looking terribly chagrinned at this admission.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Ranma said putting his hand on her shoulder. "We came in force to get Akane back. My friends. some of the best martial artists around...we weren't expecting to face this sort of hardware. We put up a hell of a fight, but there was just too many bullets flying..." Ranma shuddered at the memory of seeing his friends cut down. "Don't beat yourself up over it, okay?"

Motoko looked at him for several moments before nodding.

"Anyway, my sister needs to know about this, if only so she doesn't send anyone into a similar situation," Motoko continued. "She might even be able to help us."

"Well, let's gear up and find something to eat," Ranma suggested. "Then we can work on finding out where we are."

Motoko nodded and turned to the wall on which several swords were hanging. Carefully examining several blades with a practiced eye, she eventually selected a katana with a lacquered black saya. The tsuka was wrapped with black silk thread over red-dyed shark skin and the blade was gleaming, razor-sharp, high-quality steel. She also selected a pair of combat knives and several shuriken before returning to the table to deposit her selections.

Motoko was amazed to see the table empty when she got there and she looked hard at Ranma to see what he kept. However, she quickly realized that this hidden weapons technique he mentioned performed as advertised. She couldn't detect the first weapon on his person.

"Impressive," she commented. "How much did you take?"

"All of it," Ranma shrugged. "Next time I get in a gun fight, I want to be able to shoot back."

"Agreed," Motoko nodded, her eyes straying over to the rack of pistols. "Do you suppose you could teach me this technique?"

Ranma looked at her appraisingly for several moments before answering.

"I suppose I could," Ranma agreed.

"Great," Motoko smiled. "If I chose a couple of firearms, do you have room to carry them until I learn the technique?"

"Sure. Just don't get too carried away," Ranma replied.

"Thanks," Motoko said before heading for the gun racks.

She quickly chose a pair of Beretta PX4s in .40S&W caliber and an MP5/40 firing the same caliber. Motoko considered grabbing a shotgun like the one Ranma had, but decided not to burden him any more than necessary. Instead, she just grabbed a number of spare magazines for each weapon and some extra ammo before returning to the table with her loot.

On the way back over to the table, Motoko spotted a shelf with a number of cell phones on it.

Tsuruko Aoyama knelt before the Aoyama family shrine. Her exquisite, aristocratic beauty was marred by her red-rimmed eyes and the dark circles under them. Four months ago her little sister and future head of the Aoyama branch of the Shinmei Ryu went missing and was presumed dead. Tsuruko hadn't taken it well, blaming herself for sending Motoko into a situation she wasn't prepared for without back up. It was unforgiveable.

Nonetheless, Tsuruko spent a good portion of her day praying to her ancestors and Motoko for forgiveness. When she wasn't praying, she was punishing herself with intense training. After all, Motoko wouldn't be able to become the head of the Aoyama Shinmei Ryu now.

Having sequestered herself in the shrine and dojo, she ignored the ringing of the telephone in favor of her prayers. Her husband would get the phone and make any excuses necessary if it was another call to extend condolences. He had been wonderful through out this trying time in spite of the fact that she had been neglecting him.

"Tsu-chan," her husband spoke, entering the room with a broad smile and practically vibrating with excitement. "The phone is for you."

"I am busy, Husband," Tsuruko said coolly. "I do not wish to be disturbed."

"Trust me, Koi, you want to take this call," he replied, his grin growing.

"Who is it?" Tsuruko demanded, irritated.

"You'll just have to answer the phone to see," he replied infuriatingly.

"Fine, but we will speak of this later," Tsuruko huffed, rising to her feet.

"I'm sure we will," he replied in a cheerful tone, his excitement not daunted in the slightest.

Tsuruko stalked out of the shrine, down the hall, and into the study, her husband following behind her.

"Moshi moshi," Tsuruko said curtly after picking up the phone.

"Big sister! It's so good to hear your voice."

Tsuruko gasped and turned white as a sheet.

"M-Motoko? I-is that you?" Tsuruko stammered.

"Do you have any other little sisters?"

"Where have you been?" Tsuruko demanded. "You've been missing for four months! We thought you were dead! Do you have any idea what I've been through? Where are you?"

"F-four months?" Motoko's surprised voice gasped. "I nearly was killed. I was captured by the monsters you sent me to investigate. I'm not sure where I am at the moment. I'm still at the facility I was being held. It's some sort of lab. I think I was being kept sedated. The monsters holding me vampires, I think where attacked by another group of monsters and slaughtered. I guess the drugs wore off and Ranma and I woke up...Big Sister...they changed me. I'm not human anymore. I'm not sure what to do."

"..." Tsuruko didn't know what to say to that.

"Big Sister?"

"Are you safe, Motoko?" Tsuruko asked.

"I think so," Motoko replied. "Ranma and I are armed and I think we can deal with any monsters that might come to investigate as long as they don't overwhelm us with numbers."

"Ranma?" Tsuruko inquired.

"Ranma Saotome. He's a martial artist that was being held with me. They changed him too," Motoko explained.

"Do you trust him?"

"I think so," Motoko replied. "He appears to be very skilled."

"Very well," Tsuruko said. "Here's what I want you to do..."

Imposed Evolution: Born of Blade and Bullets [Episode 213398]  
by Iridium Heart

"Four months," Motoko said in a flat tone. "It's been four months since..."

"Four and a half for me," Ranma spoke up when Motoko trailed off. "Everyone probably thinks I'm dead."

Motoko looked over at him and caught the bag of medical blood he tossed to her. She watched as Ranma sucked the blood from his own bag as if it were merely a juice box.

"How can you be so casual about drinking human blood?" Motoko demanded sharply, but the look of fascination on her face gave lie to the disgust in her tone.

Ranma shrugged.

"It ain't like people don't eat weirder stuff all the time," he replied. "I mean really, what's more disgusting: eating rotten duck eggs that have been buried in the ground, eating raw monkey brains right from the skull, or drinking some blood from a bag? Besides, after being forced to eat Akane's cooking, this is nothing. We gotta eat after all and I get the feeling if we don't, it could be...bad."

Motoko eyed the bag of blood in her hands distastefully. Now that Ranma had mentioned it, the memories stuffed into her head gave her the same impression that allowing herself to get too hungry wouldn't be a good idea. Reluctantly, she pinched the end off the tube and slid it between her lips. Stealing herself, she gently squeezed the bag, forcing the crimson blood inside up the tube and into her mouth.

Motoko had tasted blood before, having had her share of split lips and such while training, but she was unprepared for the explosion of flavor that burst across her palate. It tasted exactly like she expected blood to taste, but the taste had somehow been recategorized from 'stomach-turning' to 'delicious'. Unconsciously, her hands squeezed the bag harder as she drank greedily.

Realizing that the cessation of fluid flowing from the tube meant she had emptied the bag already, Motoko suddenly felt eyes on her. She looked up to see Ranma staring at her with a glazed look in his eyes. Immediately, Motoko began to feel self-conscious.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, fidgeting nervously.

Ranma blinked, shaking his head to snap himself out of the daze he was in. He desperately cast about, trying to think of something less likely to get him pounded than telling her the truth: that the look of ecstasy on her face as she fed coupled with the outfit she had on made Motoko look insanely hot.

"You were just...it was nothing. Forget it," he said, blushing and tossing a second bag of blood to her before turning away.

Motoko would have pressed him for an answer, but she was too busy sucking on the fresh bag of blood which she had practically dove out of her chair to snatch out of the air.

"There's more in the refrigerator in the kitchen," Ranma said over his shoulder as he left the room to go pound his head against a wall somewhere in hopes of knocking the bad thoughts out.

Outside the mountain-side mansion, six figures watched from the trees. Each was clad from head to toe in heavy, black, neoprene suits. Their faces were covered in close fitting masks with large, dark tinted lenses over their eyes and built-in respirators over their noses and mouths. Strapped to the suits in combat webbing were various weapons ranging from knives to guns to explosives. Each also carried a submachine gun of some type ranging from MP5s to FN P90s, except for one figure that clutched an M4 carbine.

"Looks quiet," one of the figures commented.

"Too quiet if you ask me," another added.

"It is the middle of the day so that's not exactly unexpected," a female voice observed.

"We haven't heard from anyone inside this facility for two days now," the one with the M4 pointed out. "We have to assume they were hit by someone. We're going in. Chances are whoever hit them is gone, but keep on your toes and watch for any surprises that might have been left behind."

With silent, military precision the team broke from the trees and rapidly closed in on the building before flattening themselves on either side of the door. The one with the M4 reached up and gently tried the doorknob, finding it unlocked. Cradling his M4 in his lap, he counted off with his fingers before throwing the door open. The figure opposite him rushed inside, sweeping her MP5 from side to side looking for a target as she cleared the doorway to couch off to the side in a covering position. The others rapidly followed her through taking their own covering positions.

There was no sign of any hostile targets, but as soon as the team had entered, they caught the smell of blood even through their respirators. Entering last, the figure with the M4 made hand signs to the others and the team began to move deeper into the building.

Ranma paused in his head banging when he caught the sound of a door opening followed by the faint sounds of booted feet hitting the floor. He knew instantly that they had company and it was much too soon for Motoko's people to have arrived.

He quickly returned to the room he had left Motoko in finding her just finishing her meal. She looked up at him questioningly but he held his finger to his lips before she could speak.

"We have company," he whispered softly, taking her P4X pistols and her MP5/40 out of stuff-space, placing them on the table next to her.

Motoko stood, nodding her understanding. After slipping the pistols into the waist band of her pants, she slung the strap of the SMG over her shoulder and accepted the extra magazines from Ranma while marveling that he could pull out exactly what he wanted instantly. She stuffed the extra magazines in her jacket pockets and picked up her sword which was leaning against the table beside her as Ranma produced his Mossberg 590 and chambered a round as quietly as he could.

"Time for some payback," Ranma growled softly, his eyes turning ice blue.

"Agreed," Motoko whispered, her eyes matching his.

The assault team had split up into three two-man teams. Two had gone up stairs to clear the upper levels while the third began clearing the ground floor. The pair on the ground floor was rapidly moving down the corridor clearing rooms as they went.

"Fucking Lycans," one of them spat as they came across the first Lycan body.

They had discovered ten vampire bodies thus far either riddled with bullets or torn apart.

"At least now we know who hit us," the other one commented. "Let's keep moving."

The pair continued down the hall and entered the next room, the dining room. The first one through the door never saw the sword that separated his head from his body.

"Holy shit!" his partner exclaimed as he came through the door to see the leather-clad sword-swoman completing her stroke.

He brought up his P90 to fire at her but before he had the chance he was grabbed from behind.

Ranma gave the head in his hands a sharp twist. With a crack of bone, the vampire's neck snapped and the body went limp. He lowered the body to the floor, the head now facing backwards.

As he stepped back, Motoko drove the point of her sword through the commando's heart causing Ranma to look at her quizzically.

"Better safe than sorry," Motoko explained with a shrug, withdrawing her blade and giving it an expert flick to cast off the blood.

Ranma nodded and unslung his shotgun before peeking into the hall.

"Let's go get the rest of them," he said softly over his shoulder before stepping out of the room.

He didn't look behind him to see if she was following. Instinctively, he knew she was there and he trusted her at his back without question, as if they had been training together for years.

"Martin, Reyes, report," Kristos, the strike team leader demanded quietly over the radio built into his head gear. "Martin? Reyes?" There was no response. "Dammit. Something's wrong. Dietz, you and Carson continue to sweep the upper levels. Dreaggen and I are going down to see why Martin and Reyes aren't answering."

"Yes, sir," came Dietz's reply.

Kristos and Dreaggen headed back to the stairs toward the area that Martin and Reyes where supposed to have been.

"Keep your head on a swivel, Dreaggen," Kristos cautioned. "I don't want to get taken by surprise."

"You got it, Boss," Dreaggen replied as they quietly descended the stairs.

The two commandos reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to proceed cautiously up the short corridor that lead to the main corridor on the ground floor. As they approached the intersection, Kristos, who was in the lead, signaled Dreaggen to stop and flattened himself against the wall just short of the corner.

Several tense moments later, the barrel of a shotgun slowly appeared around the corner. Kristos suddenly reached forward and grabbed the barrel, yanking it forward while preparing to fire a burst from his M4 into the enemy on the other end.

Motoko followed as Ranma cautiously approached the corner of an intersection, the smell of the rubber outfits like the two vampires they had already taken out had worn strong in her nose. There were more of them nearby. Reaching the corner, Ranma started to warily turn, leading with his shotgun when suddenly a hand grabbed the barrel and pulled him off balance. He resisted the surprisingly strong pull for a moment before letting go of the shotgun and diving forward into a roll that would take him across the intersection.

A burst of gunfire shattered the silence as bullets tore up the floor and walls behind Ranma's tumbling form. Another black-clad figure partially stepped out into the corridor to track Ranma with his weapon. Motoko's sword sung as it sliced through the air. It passed through the vampire's neck effortlessly...a little too effortlessly as it continued on to bury itself several inches in the corner of the wall.

The vampire's head rolled off his shoulders and the body dropped like a sack of potatoes. Motoko, unaccustomed to the increase in strength she now had, struggled to remove her sword from where it had become wedged in the wall. Before she could free the blade, a second vampire stepped into view preparing to fire a P90 at her.

The vampire never got a chance as heavy muzzle blasts exploded into the air. The vampire was spun around and thrown back down the hall by the impacts of several .50 caliber bullets slamming into her body and weapon. Glancing to the side, Motoko saw Ranma had reversed his tumble and was now on one knee with his pair of Desert Eagles aimed at the downed vampire.

Nodding gratefully to Ranma, she finally freed her sword as he stood up and walked over to the moaning vampire that was laying on the ground bleeding heavily from several massive wounds. Ranma stood over the vampire and looked down at the masked face before emptying the last few rounds in one of his pistols into her head.

Motoko fought down the urge to gag as the vampire's head cracked open like an egg, spraying chunks of brain matter, bone, and blood across the floor. Ranma looked a bit sick himself as he reloaded his pistols before making them disappear with his hidden weapons technique.

"Are you okay?" he asked, collecting his shotgun from where it had fallen on the floor.

"I'm fine. How about you?" Motoko returned.

"Great," Ranma replied. "Thanks for having my back. We make a pretty good team."

"Thank you as well," Motoko said. "And, yes, we do make a good team."

Ranma smiled at her before looking up at the ceiling where the sounds of booted feet were heard.

"Looks like we have a few more to take out," he commented.

"After you," Motoko said with her own grin as she sheathed her sword and cycled the action of her MP5/40 now that stealth wasn't an issue anymore.

Imposed Evolution: Thrown to the...Well...Not Wolves [Episode 221596]  
by Iridium Heart

"Did you hear that?" Dietz hissed at her partner, her grip tightening on the MP5 in her hands as echoes of muffled gunfire filtered up to them from the ground floor.

"I heard it," Carson nodded as the first burst of gunfire was followed by several deeper reports. "I don't like it."

"Kristos, what's happening?" Dietz demanded over the radio after the gunfire ceased. "Boss, come in. Talk to me."

"I really don't like it," Carson remarked as their commander failed to reply. "This is so not good. What are we gonna do?"

"I say we get out of here," Dietz suggested. "We have to report this and come back with a larger force."

"No arguments here," Carson agreed. "Let's go."

"Leaving so soon?" Ranma drawled in a tone full of mock-hurt, causing the two black-suited figures coming down the stairway to freeze. "But you just got here."

The two turned their heads to the door on the wall opposite the steps in unison to find they were staring down the barrel of Ranma's 12 gauge. Motoko stepped out of a doorway near the foot of the stairway with her SMG.

"I guess it is true what they say about gaijin not having any manners," Motoko observed in her best patronizing sneer from behind her shouldered MP5/40.

"And I was having such a good time too," Ranma mock-pouted.

"Well, you know what they say," Motoko pontificated. "It's all fun and games until someone loses their head."

"But until then..." Ranma added with a wicked smirk, "it's all fun and games."

"Who the hell are you?" the female figure demanded, her voice distorted by her mask. "You're clearly not Lycans."

"Oh, she's good," Motoko quipped. "We were...guests...of this facility at least until our gracious hosts got themselves torn apart."

"Guests?" the female asked and then her voice hardened. "What have you done with Kristos and the others?"

"They lost their heads when we greeted them," Ranma smirked evilly.

"You killed them?" the man asked incredulously. "But you're vampires. Why would you kill your own kind?"

"Vampires? Please. We are nothing like you loathsome creatures," Motoko sneered. "Now, unless you wish to end up like your friends, I suggest you put down your weapons and surrender."

"Oh shit," the woman hissed to her partner. "I know what they are. They're the test subjects R&D was working on here."

"You mean they are the spawn of the traitor Selene and her pet abomination?" the male asked.

"Geez, talk about the pot callin' the kettle black," Ranma commented to Motoko before addressing the last remaining members of the strike team. "So are you guys gonna surrender or do you want a personal demonstration of just how badly you blood-sucking freaks screwed yourselves when you took away our humanity?"

"Sorry, Carson," the woman said softly. "One of us has to get away to report this."

"Huh? Dietz, what the hell are you doing?" Carson squawked as he felt himself hoisted up by the back of his combat webbing and pulled in front of his partner.

Deitz reached around him with the hand not holding Carson up in front of her and grabbed his MP5, opening fire on Ranma and Motoko.

Ranma immediately returned fire, his first shot sending nine .30 caliber silver balls slamming into Carson's head and neck. A good portion of Carson's head vanished, blood and brains spraying across the wall and his partner as she retreated up the stairs. Ranma rapidly cycled the pump action of the Mossberg and sent another round of double-ought buckshot into the now dead vampire's chest.

Meanwhile, Motoko opened up with her MP5/40, aiming low and hoping to score a crippling hit to the woman's legs as she fell back using her partner's body for a shield. However, she was forced to duck back out of the way as the suppressing fire from the woman's MP5 came her way.

Ranma dumped another three rounds into the dead vampire's torso, shredding it, but they still failed to penetrate to the woman as she made it to the top of the stairs. As she did so, she let go of the SMG and fumbled around, pulling the pins on three of the silver grenades Carson carried attached to his webbing. Without a word, she tossed the body back down the stairs and ducked around the corner just as another round of buckshot slammed into the wall behind where her head had just been.

Abruptly, it registered in Ranma's mind what the woman had done before tossing the body back down the stairs.

"Grenades! Take cover!" Ranma roared, stowing his shotgun back in hidden weapons-space and tackling Motoko further into the room she had ducked into when evading the vampire woman's SMG fire.

Ranma's momentum carried them into the room and over the back of a couch to land on the sunken floor of the room. Ranma had rotated them in the air so he took the brunt of the impact with the floor and then immediately rolled them so he was on top of her. Before Motoko had a chance to complain about a male invading her personal space so forcefully, a series of deafening explosions sent shrapnel and debris from the shattered walls flying through the room they were in, showing them with splinters and dust. The overpressure shattered the windows in the room and momentarily stunned the pair as it wrecked havoc with their inner ears and forced the air from their lungs.

"Shit," Ranma hissed, as he recovered his wind. "You alive, Motoko?"

"I don't know," came a groaned reply. "I'm a vampire, so maybe undead would be a better description."

"I meant, are you hurt?" Ranma clarified, rolling his eyes. "This ain't the time get all philosophical on me."

Ranma felt Motoko's body quiver intriguingly as she giggled slightly. He picked his head up and turned to look at her. His storm-cloud gray eyes met her eyes of gold-flecked sienna and they locked together for an eternal moment as their souls connected. Simultaneously, his hand moved up to tenderly brush a lock of hair from her face while her hand found his waist under his coat. Slowly, their faces moved closer together, their lips moistened for the anticipated moment of contact.

The moment was abruptly shattered by the sound of glass breaking from upstairs followed by a thump of booted feet hitting the ground outside. Ranma hesitated for a moment, torn between continuing with Motoko and going after the vampire bitch.

"We have to stop her," Motoko said with a hint of regret in her tone. "We can't let her tell her superiors about us."

Ranma nodded, closing his eyes and reluctantly getting to his feet before moving to the shattered window. Peering outside, he winced at the brightness of the day, some half-remembered reflex telling him he'd burst into flames if he went out in the sun. However, a more vivid if equally as foreign memory told him he wasn't any more vulnerable to the sun than the average person with pale skin so he jumped out onto the lawn, gripping the pistol grip of his shotgun.

Ranma spotted the vampire woman sprinting across the grounds headed for the trees. Shouldering his shotgun, Ranma put the glowing dot in the Mossberg's reflex sight on the woman's retreating back and pulled the trigger. Absorbing the recoil with his shoulder, he cycled the action and fired again before repeating the process twice more. The last pull of the trigger yielded only a click as the firing pin encountered an empty chamber.

Imposed Evolution: Better to Burn Out or Fade Away? [Episode 221778]  
by Iridium Heart

Tsuruko Aoyama slid into the front passenger seat of the large, late model Mercedes sedan and greeted the three men in the back seat and the woman in the driver's seat. Each was a veteran practitioner of the Shinmei Ryu and had a no-nonsense air about them.

"Where are we going?" the hard-eyed woman behind the wheel asked.

Tsuruko handed her a flashdrive which the woman took without comment and plugged it into the car's nav system. All the data Tsuruko had been able to collect on the location in the short time since her sister had called her was downloaded to the display screen. It wasn't much, primarily just the location and a satellite photo of the facility which appeared to be an affluent mountain-side mansion in a secluded rural area near Gunma.

"We can be there in four and a half to five hours," the driver indicated, ignoring the estimated seven hour trip time displayed on the nav system. "What is the status on the others?"

"They are still gathering the equipment and the specialists," Tsuruko answered. "They should be about an hour behind us. That should give us enough time to secure the site and make sure there are no surprises."

"Are we sure this is good information?" one of the men in the backseat asked. "Are you sure sorry, Tsuruko-san that this is really your sister and not some...creature...wearing her body setting a trap for us?"

The man gulped and sunk down in his seat under the glare Tsuruko pinned him with.

"If that's the case then I will deal with it personally," Tsuruko said icily. "Regardless of the situation, we now have a chance to find out more about these creatures that took my sister and begin exterminating them from our lands. It is an opportunity we cannot ignore even if we are walking into some sort of ambush."

"Of course, Tsuruko-san. I just thought the possibility should be mentioned," the man said apologetically.

"Just to be clear: Nobody attacks Motoko or the boy she has with her unless they prove themselves a threat. Is that understood?" Tsuruko met the eyes of each of the other occupants in the car, receiving an affirmative response from each.

Motoko struggled to her feet and followed Ranma out the window. She landed beside him just as he fired the last round at the fleeing vampire woman.

"Damn that bitch is fast," Ranma snarled as the woman disappeared into the trees, trailing a small amount of smoke from a couple of small tears in her suit where Ranma's shots had scored minor hits.

"Now we hunt," Motoko announced in a chilly tone while slinging her SMG and unsheathing her sword again.

Ranma grinned ferally and stowed his empty Mossberg.

"After you, Mi'lady," he said with a slight bow.

Motoko nodded and headed for the woods setting a significantly faster pace than she had been capable of before the vampires changed her into their worst nightmare. Ranma matched her effortlessly and took to the trees as soon as they reached them.

Dietz cursed to herself as she ran through the trees while trying to ignore the extremely painful burning sensations coming from the tears in her suit. The pain had faded a bit after she got out of the direct sunlight, and she was lucky she had escaped with only the damage she did. If even one of those shotgun blasts had scored a direct hit, she would have been flamb by now.

Luckily, Dietz did have some patching material on her she could use to repair her suit. She would have to stop soon to do so. However...

"You can run, but you'll only die tired!" her male pursuer's voice taunted her, seemingly from all directions as it echoed off the trees.

Clearly, stopping to fix her suit was tantamount to suicide at this point. Dietz redoubled her efforts to get back to the vehicle. If she could reach it before they caught her, she would be home free.

"Fuck!" Dietz shrieked as she was showered with bark where a bullet slammed into the tree by her head as she passed. Almost immediately after the impact a boom echoed through the woods. The fleeing vampire didn't pause though. She couldn't afford to get pinned down.

Motoko jumped up on to the branch Ranma was standing on from which he had just took a shot at the vampire with his FN-FAL.

"I have an idea," Motoko said quickly. "I'm going to cut her off. I just need you to keep up the pressure on her."

"How ya gonna cut her off?" Ranma asked. "We don't know where she's going."

"Oh, I have an idea of where she's going," Motoko smirked nastily, pointing down through a space in the trees. Ranma followed her finger and spotted a road winding around the mountain side. "My guess is she's headed for the vehicle they came in. I'm going down to the road to find where she's parked. Hopefully I'll be waiting for her when she comes out."

"Gotcha." Ranma nodded in understanding. "I'll see if I can't make her take a few detours to buy you some time."

With that, the pair split up. Ranma headed off in the direction the vampire had gone and Motoko ran toward the road. It didn't take long before the leather-clad swords-woman was standing at the top of a sheer one hundred foot drop off, at the bottom of which was the road she'd spotted where it curved around the other side of the valley.

Pausing for a moment, she considered the wisdom of what she was about to do. It would have been beyond her abilities just a few months before, but now something told her she would be fine. Taking a breath, she jumped off the cliff.

The air roared past her ears and her stomach rose to her throat as Motoko plunged downward toward the hard pavement below her. Luckily, she knew how to control her body to maintain her feet-first attitude. It was something she knew how to do from before, though she had never tried it from this height.

Motoko took the impact with surprising ease, though the pavement cracked slightly as she bent at the knees to absorb the energy. Coming up from her deep-knee bend position, she immediately began running up the road to find where the vampire strike team had parked.

"Thank god!" Dietz cheered as she burst from the trees and spotted their vehicles parked off the side of the road a short way down.

She spared the Mercedes SL55 AMG a longing glance as she ran by it. It would have been the better vehicle for a fast getaway, but Kristos had the electronic key on him so she had no way to start it. Instead she jumped in the Toyota Surf parked behind it and started it up.

Jamming the SUV into reverse, she floored the throttle. The V8 engine roared as the full-time four-wheel drive gripped the ground firmly, accelerating the Toyota backward hard even as a bullet slammed through the windshield. Dietz ignored the bullet and the ones that followed as she slid the SUV into a 180 and slammed it into drive. Several more bullets shattered the back glass as the SUV lunged forward down the moderately steep mountain road.

The vampire breathed a sigh of relief as she rounded a curve and the bullets stopped. She was home free now. Dietz pulled out her cell phone and divided her attention between the road and dialing, but stopped suddenly when she spotted something in the road ahead.

"What the fuck?" she screamed in dismay as the female test subject appeared in middle of the road with a sword. "Fine then, bitch, if that's the way you want it..."

Dietz pressed down harder on the gas and aimed the SUV right at the girl.

Motoko smirked evilly as the SUV bore down on her. The vampire bitch obviously had no idea who she was dealing with.

"Secret technique! Evil Splitting Sword!" Motoko shouted, bringing her sword down and releasing a burst of ki energy.

The energy hit the SUV when it was about twenty feet away from Motoko, splitting the vehicle cleanly in half lengthwise. The two halves split apart and passed to either side of the sword-swoman, continuing down the road for another thirty feet before exploding violently.

"Whoa, awesome technique," Ranma complimented as he appeared beside Motoko.

"Indeed," Motoko replied calmly as she sheathed her sword. "Problem solved."

Just then, a scream was heard from the flaming wreckage. Ranma and Motoko whirled around to see a flaming figure stagger out of the conflagration only to stumble and fall after a few feet. The pair watched solemnly as the body was soon consumed to ash.

"Damn..." Ranma breathed. Sure he wanted to exterminate the bloodsucking freaks that had killed his friends and turned him in to a super-version of them, but being burned alive seemed like a horrible way to die.

"Yeah..." Motoko agreed, experiencing similar qualms on the subject.

Imposed Evolution: The Feeling of Inevitability [Episode 221947]  
by Iridium Heart

When the pair had returned to the house, they decided a shower was in order to wash off all the dust and grime they had accumulated during the battle. Ranma had been content to keep watch while Motoko went first.

Finished with her shower, Motoko found Ranma in the dining room with his array of weapons laid out on the table in front of him. She watched him silently as he finished reloading the 590's extended magazine tube to its eight-round capacity and then cycled the action to chamber a round before he slid the ninth round into the tube.

Finished with the task, he set the shotgun aside and looked over at her. Motoko blushed faintly as their eyes met and quickly informed him the shower was free. Ranma gave her a nod and a quick smile as he left to go shower, leaving Motoko alone with her thoughts.

After he left, she decided to take a cue from him. Motoko reloaded her SMG before locating a whetstone and proceeding to hone the minor nicks out of the blade of her sword. The katana was well-maintained but whoever had sharpened it last hadn't been up to her standards with their technique.

As she tended to her blade, she thought about her companion. Motoko wasn't sure if it was just the situation they were in, the memories that they shared from their progenitor, or if there was something else at work, but she had never felt as connected or attracted to a male as she did to Ranma. Somehow, she felt that they were two of a kind, possibly even before the vampires had turned them.

When she had fought by his side, it was almost as if she knew what he was going to do before he did it. They flowed together seamlessly in a way that went beyond just teamwork; it was more of a partnership. The part that really dismayed her, however, was the absolute trust she felt in him, as if she had known him all her life instead of just a few of hours.

While Motoko had relaxed her stance on men thanks to her experiences with Keitaro, she still viewed most males with suspicion and disdain. She was shocked to find that, instead of disgust, she actually enjoyed it when he looked at her with that certain, slightly hungry, look that wordlessly stated that he liked what he was seeing and would enjoy seeing more of it. Of course, the look was fleeting. He usually suppressed it very quickly. The thought of the sheepish look on his face that usually followed, made Motoko smile softly.

Feeling restless, Motoko put down her katana and the whetstone. She stood and decided to go for a little walk through the mansion. There might be something useful they had yet to discover.

'And maybe I can find one of those female Death Dealer uniforms,' Motoko thought with a blush. 'I wonder how Ranma would react to seeing me in one of those shiny latex catsuits and corsets?'

Ranma glared at the shower head as if the fixture had mortally offended him. In spite of the intensity of the pigtailed martial artist-cum-neo-vampire's hateful glower, the spray of water issuing forth remained unrepentantly cold. Finally, Ranma sighed in resignation. It wasn't as if she honestly expected the curse to conveniently vanish just because she was a vampire now and it seemed to also be part of the curse that the water heater should choose now to malfunction.

There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. The explosions during the battle had probably damaged the wiring and Motoko had used up the hot water left in the tank when she took her shower or something equally as mundane, yet overly coincidental.

Thinking of Motoko made Ranma cringe. Considering how everyone else had reacted to the curse, the young swords-woman was probably going to try and kill her before she could explain. Even if she lived long enough to explain, Motoko would probably reject her and that was a thought that Ranma found entirely to painful to contemplate not after what had almost happened between them. If Motoko rejected her now, she would be well and truly alone.

Ranma clamped down on those thoughts. If she kept thinking like that she would turn into Shinji Ikari or something. Maybe once she finished with her shower she would be able to sneak into the kitchen to heat up some water before Motoko saw her. She would have to tell Motoko about the curse, of course, but if Motoko was prepared for it, she might not react quite as badly.

Motoko giggled to herself as she walked down the corridor with a gym bag filled with purloined items she planned to take with her. The bag included a Death Dealer outfit among a few other things that would have her friends back in Hinata freaking out.

'Gods, I'm turning into Haruka,' Motoko thought to herself wryly.

Feeling a bit peckish, she decided to stop by the kitchen and grab a bag or two of blood. It was surprising how quickly she had become used to the idea of drinking the stuff. Maybe Ranma was right: it was no worse than some of the things normal humans ate and they did have to eat.

Ranma stood, nervously shifting from foot to foot and absently biting at a fingernail as she waited for the cup of water to heat up in the microwave. Using the Umisenken invisibility technique, she had made it safely to the kitchen and found a cup which she quickly filled with water and set to heating it. It seemed to take forever as the timer on the microwave slowly counted down to zero much too slowly for Ranma's comfort.

Stepping into the kitchen, Motoko froze upon spotting unfamiliar girl pouring a cup of water over her head. She dropped her bag and her other hand was reaching for the pistol that was riding in a holster on her thigh when she saw the stranger's bright red hair turn jet black and the body rapidly grow six or seven inches in height while filling out into a much more familiar figure.

"R-Ranma?" Motoko gasped from the doorway, causing the person in question to jump as if jabbed with a hot poker and whirled around to face her.

Motoko stared at the face of her companion with eyes wide in alarm.

"I-I can explain!" Ranma shouted desperately, taking a step toward her.

Motoko's pistol was in her hand, pointed at him as she backed away, shaking her head in denial. She had trusted him. He had been her anchor the one person that could understand what she was going through the one person that made her feel like she was not alone in this situation. She hadn't realized how much she had been depending on his presence to keep it together. Until now. Now that she discovered he was some sort of shape-shifting...thing...that was probably trying to gain her trust only to betray her later. Suddenly, Motoko felt more alone and vulnerable than she ever had before.

"Please! It's me, Ranma. It's a curse. I was going to tell you about it, I swear," Ranma pleaded frantically.

"Stay away from me, you...whatever you are!" Motoko shrieked as the tears of betrayal started welling up in her panicked eyes. "I trusted you!"

"Please let me explain!" Ranma begged, his eyes casting about desperately for some way to convince her to give him a chance. Then it struck him. If she tasted his blood and got a few of his memories, that would convince her he was really her friend. Ranma reached up and snatched the collar of his shirt to the side, baring his neck. "Please, bite me. My blood will prove I don't wanna hurt you and that I really am your friend. If I'm not, then you can kill me. Please, just give me a chance!"

Motoko paused and appeared to consider Ranma's words. Ranma held his breath and silently urged her to accept the offer. Her friendship had become crucial to him. He didn't want to deal with this alone. It was at that moment that he realized she was the only thing standing between him and a dark depression beyond even Ryoga's imagination.

"Why?" Motoko asked.

"Because I want...no...I need you to be my friend." Ranma wasn't sure which of his statements her 'why' was referring to, but his answer covered pretty much all of them. "If it takes my blood to convince you that I'm your friend, then I'll happily let you bleed me dry."

"Alright," Motoko said after a few moments of thought. "But if you try anything, I will kill you."

Ranma cocked his head to the side and tried to look non-threatening as Motoko cautiously approached him. Soon there was almost no space between them as she leaned forward toward his exposed neck. Her warm breath caressed his skin raising goose-flesh in its wake. The position would have looked almost intimate has she not been holding her pistol to the other side of his head.

Ranma winced slightly as he felt her fangs penetrate his skin and his blood begin to well forth. The pain was only fleeting however; it was soon replaced by a surprisingly pleasant sensation, almost as if she was sensually kissing his neck, giving him a hickey.

When Motoko's body suddenly tensed, Ranma felt a moment of fear that maybe she was going to shoot him after all, but it soon passed as moments later the tension left her body and she seemed to melt into him. Motoko pressed her body against his and began to suck harder on his neck. The swords-woman moaned slightly and the hand holding the gun drifted down to wrap around him joining her other arm to pull him closer.

Ranma soon began to feel light headed and absently wrapped his own arms around Motoko, holding on to her tightly to hold himself up.

Motoko wasn't certain what to expect when she bit into Ranma's neck. She was a little wary of drinking blood right from the source. It was more than a little creepy. However, when she got her first taste of the warm fluid, she was in awe. It tasted even better than the stuff from the bag, though it did have a somewhat different taste, most likely due to Ranma being a vampire.

And then the visions began to hit her, causing her body to tense. They were somewhat disjointed but they were coherent enough to give her the gist of what she was seeing and feeling. And what she was seeing and feeling was a heck of a lot more than she bargained for.

The earlier memories were merely snapshots with some emotions attached. Motoko saw Ranma being taken from his mother when he was just barely six years old. She saw images of the Nekoken training and the pain and terror Ranma had felt. She saw years of training so insane she was sure it amounted to torture rather than training. As the memories became newer, she was getting more details and they were beginning to actually become entire scenes rather than just snapshots.

Then she got to Jusenkyo. It was almost like she was a passenger in Ranma's head as he got knocked into the spring. She was looking through his eyes when he looked down, opening his gi to see two moderately sized female breasts standing out proudly on his chest. She felt the horror and despair that welled up inside him in that moment.

Next she saw Nerima and Ranma's life with the Tendos and all the craziness that went along with it. The rivals, the fianc es, the glorious highs and the bitter lows Motoko experienced all of it, right up until the vampire version of Akane had shot him.

Finally, Motoko saw herself from his eyes. These images were very clear. She saw herself naked when they had first awoken. She saw herself when Ranma had first laid eyes on her in her purloined leather outfit. She saw herself in the heat of battle. She felt what her body had felt like when pressed against his. But what had a bigger impact were the emotions attached to those memories. She felt his strong desire for her, his awe of her beauty, his respect for her skill and strength, and his budding...affection for her. She also felt his despair and anguish at how she had reacted to his curse and that made her feel small and petty.

Motoko suddenly became aware of Ranma sagging heavily against her and realized that she had been a little overly enthusiastic, caught up in the sensations and underlying sensuality she was experiencing while feeding on Ranma's blood. She quickly removed her fangs and softly lapped at the wounds until they closed. Most movies depicted vampires as being messy eaters, allowing huge streams of blood to escape and run uselessly down the victim's body or something. That was a horrible waste and she doubted any civilized vampire would feed that way. She certainly wouldn't.

Motoko maneuvered Ranma over to a chair and sat him down before going over to the refrigerator and retrieving several bags of blood. Pinching the top off one, she slid the tube into the groggy Ranma's mouth and squeezed the bag gently. Tasting the fluid, Ranma begain to instinctively drink greedily.

After a bag and a half, Ranma perked up enough to begin feeding himself. Motoko backed off and leaned against the counter while she parsed through her thoughts and feelings about what she had been shown. It was clear to her now why she instinctively felt they were kindred spirits. Ranma shared her dedication to excellence in the art. They had both made sacrifices to attain their level of skill, although his seemed to be far greater than her own. While she was insecure in her femininity, he had a weird gender changing curse. She had an irrational fear of turtles and he had an irrational fear of cats. In fact, they shared more parallels than not.

One thing that had been an underlying motivation through out Ranma's life was a deep loneliness in spite of the people around him vying for his attention. It was the loneliness that made him easily forgive numerous betrayals that would have had Motoko declaring a blood feud on a number of the people in Ranma's circle had half the things done to him had been done to her. Still, Ranma did feel that nobody truly appreciated him, even though he was the one everyone turned to to fix things when they got out of hand.

Motoko couldn't lie to herself though. While Ranma wasn't quite up to Keitaro's level of winding up in compromising situations, she knew if she had been a part of Ranma's circle in Nerima, she likely wouldn't have treated him any better than those other girls. She felt the pain and betrayal he felt every time that Akane girl jumped to a conclusion and then refused to give him a chance to explain. She also felt the hurt he felt each time the person he cared most about proved she didn't trust him even after all the things he had done for her.

Had she been on the outside, Motoko knew she wouldn't have trusted him either. But seeing things from his point of view, she now knew that Ranma was loyal to a fault. It had taken the Akane girl shooting him to break his loyalty to her. On the other hand, she also knew that none of them deserved his loyalty. It was heartbreaking.

Now she was being given a chance to have that loyalty, perhaps even occupy the position in his heart that Akane had. It was awe-inspiring and yet humbling for Motoko to know how he really felt about her even though she had very nearly behaved no better than that Akane bitch, rejecting him for something he had no control over without even bothering to hear him out. It was as if she had nearly thrown away the most fantastic gift anyone could ever receive simply because she didn't like the way the bow was tied on the otherwise gorgeous wrapping paper. Motoko didn't like to think of herself as being that shallow.

"So do you believe me now?" Ranma interrupted her thoughts.

Motoko looked up at his desperately hopeful expression and instantly felt like a complete fool. Tears of remorse welled up in her eyes and she flung herself at him.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed into his shoulder. "Of course I'm your friend as long as you'll have me. Please forgive me for doubting you."

"Shhhh," Ranma consoled, catching her in his arms. "It's okay. I don't blame you for being confused. I would have been too. At least you gave me a chance to prove myself. Thanks for that. I guess I should explain about the curse."

"No," Motoko shook her head, "I know all about it. I saw everything, including Jusenkyo."

"You did?" Ranma asked. Motoko felt his body tense under her. "W-what else did you see?"

Evidently he hadn't anticipated all his secrets being laid bare before her.

"Everything," she replied. "The Nekoken, how people treated you...how you feel about me."

Motoko couldn't help but giggle through her tears as he began to stammer out incoherent apologies and excuses. She silenced him with a finger to his lips.

"It's okay," she said softly. "I don't mind. Really." And then to prove it, she kissed him softly on the cheek before laying her head back on his shoulder with a sigh. "I...I like you too."

For several moments, both fledgling Newtype vampires just sat there blushing incandescently. As Motoko sat in his lap being comfortably held in Ranma's arms, it occurred to her that she had been feeling lonely herself. The one boy she had ever been interested in before this was clearly in love with someone else. But Ranma was hers if she wanted. All she had to do was claim him. Any other contenders for his heart were either dead or had irreparably broken his trust. Even if more showed up later on, Motoko knew they would never be able to come between the bond she and Ranma shared, just like the other fianc es hadn't been able to come between Ranma and the loyalty he had for Akane. If anything, Motoko's connection with Ranma was stronger, both because of the parallels they shared and because of their situation.

But for now, Motoko decided to wait. If she still felt the same way once things settled down some, then she would act on it. Right now wasn't the time to make decisions like that.

Which didn't mean she wasn't going to take advantage of the closeness they were currently sharing. She needed it more than she would ever admit with all that had happened to her, especially since she still wasn't sure how her sister and the council were going to react to what she was now.

The sun was almost to the horizon as the Mercedes pulled up to a police roadblock. Ayane, the driver, rolled down her window as one of the officers approached the car.

"Sorry, Miss, this road has been closed," the officer explained. "You'll have to turn around and go back."

"I'm Ayane Mitsurugi and we are with the Department of Public Safety Special Affairs Division," Ayane informed him, flashing her ID. "Why have you closed the road?"

"Oh, sorry, Ma'am. I guess you are the ones we've been waiting for," the officer said as his demeanor went from polite to respectful. It was good to have official authority. "We had reports of gunfire and explosions up on the mountain and our spotters reported a burning vehicle further up the road. We were ordered to contain the situation but not to go in."

"I see," Ayane said coolly.

"Good work, officer," Tsuruko spoke up. "Now if you don't mind, you can let us through now and return to your regular duties. We'll take over from here."

"We'll be glad to provide backup for you, ma'am," the officer offered.

"That won't be necessary. We have backup coming. For your own safety, I can't let you get involved," Tsuruko explained.

"Yes, ma'am," the officer agreed reluctantly before turning to his comrades. "Okay, boys, pack it up. The DPS is here to take over."

In short order, the barricades were removed and Tsuruko's team were allowed to pass. Ayane swiftly guided the Mercedes sedan up the road until they encountered the first sign of the trouble the police had reported.

"I recognize this work," Tsuruko frowned in concern as Ayane carefully maneuvered the car between the burned out halves of an SUV. "This damaged was caused by the Evil Splitting Sword. Looks like Motoko had some trouble after she called."

A little bit further up the road they saw an SL 55 parked off to the side of the road. It appeared to be empty though, so they moved on for another half a mile or so before turning into the driveway of the location Motoko had given them. Ayane guided the car up the drive until the house could just be seen through the trees. There they stopped and everyone got out.

The five members of the advance team made their way swiftly across the yard, alert and ready for nearly anything. As they approached the house, Tsuruko noted that several of the windows on the ground floor had been shattered outward. The elder Aoyama picked one and leapt gracefully through the opening. However as soon as she hit the carpeted floor inside, a metallic click froze her in her tracks. She let her eyes adjust to the dim interior of the room and looked around for the source of the sound.

"Who are you and what do you want?" a young man's voice challenged her.

The voice drew Tsuruko's gaze toward a large, plush easy chair positioned in the corner of the room. Her eyes widened a bit as she found herself looking down the steady barrel of an immense handgun being pointed at her by the young man in the chair, but what she really wasn't prepared for was the sight of her little sister curled up in said young man's lap with her face buried in his neck, apparently fast asleep.

Tsuruko smiled mischievously at the intimacy conveyed by Motoko's position as well as her current mode of dress. This was filed away as teasing material for later.

"I am Tsuruko Aoyama, of the Shinmei Ryu," Tsuruko introduced with a small bow. "And you must be Ranma. I trust you have been taking good care of my little sister, yes?"

The young man lowered the firearm and sighed in relief.

"She's fine," he said. "She...um...had a little too much to eat and fell asleep about an hour ago."

"In your lap?" Tsuruko quizzed teasingly.

"Well, I tried to put her on the couch but she wouldn't leggo," the boy said nervously. He subtly nudged the girl sleeping in his lap.

"I see," Tsuruko smirked as he nudged her again.

Motoko groggily picked her head up and blinked owlishly at the young man.

"You had better have a good reason for waking me up or I'm going to hurt you. I was quite comfortable," Motoko growled at him.

"It certainly looked that way, little sister," Tsuruko laughed.

Motoko instantly sprang out of the boy's lap and landed several feet away from him, blushing madly.

"Big sister! It...It's not what it looks like!" Motoko offered lamely.


End file.
